Editor’s Note: Winnie the Pooh and Friends encounter many crises in the Hundred Acre Woods, but always manage to muddle through. In this post, guest author Brian Adams connects quotes from these cartoony creatures to the world of social media.
Winnie the Pooh and his friends had wonderful opinions about the world around them but who knew they shared such insight into social media and modern communications technology? Here are a few of their thoughts penned by A. A. Milne:
On Content Creation
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
On Twitter
“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”
Building a Following
“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
On Personal Facebook Posts
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
On Apple’s iOS6 Maps
“I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”
On Blogging
“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
On Google+ (and QR Codes)
“Bother.”
On LinkedIn
“So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.”
On the Facebook IPO
“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
On Texting
“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”
More on Texting
“TTFN, Ta Ta For Now.”
On Disaster Relief e-Fundraising
“And really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.”
On Not Syncing Accounts
“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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Brian Adams consults with nonprofits, including Komera Project (www.komeraproject.org), regarding communications strategy. Brian was previously Senior Director of Communications at United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley (www.supportunitedway.org) and the head of Media and Community Relations for the MSPCA-Angell (www.mspca.org). A version of this story first appeared on the author’s blog (http://brianadamspr.wordpress.com/).